Shahbanu Sadat’s No Good Men, which opened the Berlin Film Festival, mixes romance, politics and humor in a way that Afghan cinema has never done before.
This is the story of a camerawoman at a television station in Kabul. While struggling to maintain custody of her three-year-old son after splitting from her unfaithful husband, she becomes romantically involved with the station’s star male journalist just before Kabul falls to the Taliban in 2021. The Afghan filmmaker’s previous two films, 2016’s The Wolf and the Sheep and 2019’s The Orphanage, both premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
“No Good Men” is co-produced by Germany and Denmark’s Admite Film (“The Square”).
Sadat spoke to Variety about the film.
Your previous works have been dramas. What made you decide to make a romantic comedy?
I wanted to make a romantic comedy because I realized that the popular kind of movies about Afghanistan were war dramas. And I didn’t want to make a movie like that again. I’m from Afghanistan, a country without a film industry. We are misrepresented in films made by international filmmakers. So for me, it was, “How can I make an authentic movie about women that I know?” I thought, “What would happen if I made a romantic comedy?” But the moment we started funding it, we realized how uncomfortable it was to fund an Afghan romantic comedy.
Please tell us more about the difficulties involved in making a romantic comedy set in Afghanistan.
This was when I was evacuating from Afghanistan to Germany (2021). There was a vibe that “it’s inappropriate for our institutions to fund romantic comedies while brave Afghan women are fighting the Taliban in the streets.” And I thought, “I was one of them!” But I also wanted to talk about Afghan men. Good men. We know Afghan men are violent. But there is another reality in Afghanistan. We have good people and bad people. But they are never given the chance to be represented. That’s what I thought. I wanted to make a film about women that was also a love letter to all good men.
The film is being touted as the first Afghan film to feature an on-screen kiss. But this is also probably the first Afghan film to feature a vibrator. What do you think about that?
Probably the first and last! Actually, I wasn’t thinking anything. Because I came back from a trip and brought a sex toy with me as a present for my girlfriend who lived in Kabul. So for me, it just happens. My film is not an agenda film. I didn’t try to include it for any particular reason. But this is interesting because Afghan society is very conservative. Therefore, when something is not allowed, the demands on it are even higher.
“No Good Men” is clearly going to be played to a Western audience. But was it made with an Afghan audience in mind as well? Do you think they will watch it illegally?
In my head, I’m an Afghan director making films for the Afghan people. This is something that is always an issue between me and the producers. Because my producer said, “Eventually it’s going to be shown in European theaters!” And I think, “Great, but that’s not the audience I had in mind when I wrote the movie!” When I was in Kabul, there were no movie theaters. Of course, I was watching it illegally on the internet. At the end of the day, I think this is a film that Afghan society desperately needs. However, I am not naive or optimistic that they will receive it positively. In fact, I know that some people don’t, even if they make it from a really good place in their hearts. But in the worst case scenario, it will start an uncomfortable but necessary conversation.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
